* * *
The bubble-gum-chewing girl at the front desk looked up as Jack leaned on the counter, Keely beside him, holding Candy. “Ah, she’s cute. So you’re the parents?”
Keely opened her mouth, but Jack spoke before she could say anything. “Yes.”
“Fine. She looks a lot like your wife, doesn’t she? Please just sit down over there, fill out these forms, and the doctor will be with you shortly. Oh, and I need to make copies of your health insurance card.”
“That’s all right,” Jack told her. “I’ll be paying by credit card.”
“Oh, but—” the girl began, so Jack smiled at her again and said, “Trust me—I can afford it, honest.”
“Mr. Trehan, nobody can afford it these days,” the girl said, then shrugged, reaching for the ringing phone.
“Why did you do that?” Keely asked as he sat down beside her, squinting at the forms on the clipboard. Not that she was complaining, although she would never tell him that. “We’re not her parents.”
“Look,” he told her, “you know that and I know that. The doctor will know that. But do you really want to spend the next ten minutes explaining our situation to that kid over there? Because I don’t.”
“You’ve got a point,” Keely agreed, holding Candy so that the baby could practice her new trick, standing up on Keely’s thighs. “Did you bring the note from Cecily?”
“Yes, or did you think I left it in the car after I told you I had it with me when you asked me that same question right after we left the house?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sighing. “I guess I’m nervous. I keep thinking the doctor is going to call someone, have Candy taken away from us—from you.”
Jack put down the pen he was using and rubbed a knuckle beneath Candy’s chin. “That isn’t going to happen. I’ve got an appointment with an old school pal, Jimmy Haggerty, tomorrow morning. He promised he’d take care of everything.”
“How good a lawyer can he be if people still call him Jimmy?”
Jack laughed, shook his head. “You’re crazy, you know that? Now relax. I promise, everything’s going to be fine.”
Four hours later, Keely was wishing she’d had Jack open a vein and write that promise in blood, because Candy was feverish, crying, and refused to allow anyone but Keely to hold her.
“You gave her the medicine?” Petra asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor, having given up making monkey faces at Candy to try to take her mind off her troubles.
“Yes, as soon as we got home. The doctor said this might happen anyway. She’ll feel bad for a few hours, her little leg will be sore, but by tonight she’ll be fine.” Candy struggled in her arms, and Keely winced as the baby’s left fist caught her square on the nose. “If we live that long.” She grabbed hold of Candy’s fist and kissed it. “Please, baby, don’t cry. It breaks my heart.”
“Your heart, my ears,” Petra said, getting to her feet, brushing down her baby blue skirt with the bib top that went so well with her snow-white starched cotton blouse with the Peter Pan collar. Her hair was just blond today, no streaks, and she had it pulled up into ponytails on either side of her head. She wore no makeup, no rings through anything, and she had on white, lace-edged ankle socks with black patent Mary Jane shoes. “I’m outta here.”
“Going home to dunk Oreos in milk? Or maybe to watch reruns of ‘Little House on the Prairie’?” Keely asked, bouncing Candy on her hip because five minutes ago the baby seemed to like that. Now she hated it and cried even harder, her little face red, her perspiration-damp curls clinging to her head.
“Ha, ha. You’re a riot, Keely. And you’ve just proven my point, so thanks. Nobody likes me normal. Candy sure doesn’t. I’ll tell Dad; he’ll be so bummed. And then maybe I can change out of this scary costume and get on with my life.”
“Wait a minute,” Keely said, following after her. “You put those clothes on because you think they’d make you look normal?”
Petra looked down at herself, then up at Keely. “Yeah. Your point?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” Keely said, and watched Petra skip across the lawn, on her way back to Oz, or wherever she was going. Then she took Candy over to the Cartman-look-alike cookie jar and began lifting and lowering the lid. “Look, Candy, Cartman’s losing his head. Oops! There it goes! Now it’s back. Silly Cartman. Isn’t that funny?”
“Only if you haven’t laughed in twenty years,” Jack said, and Keely turned to see him lounging against the door frame. “Are your marbles inside that jar, Keely? Because I think you might have just lost them.”
Keely snapped. “Oh, and you think you can do better?” she asked, advancing toward him, Candy still crying, struggling in her arms.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Let me try. Because I think you deserve a break.”
Tears stung Keely’s eyes as she handed Candy over to Jack, and she quickly turned away to hide them from him. She was so grateful to him, she could have wept. How did single parents do it?
“There you go, Candy,” Jack was saying soothingly, rubbing the baby’s back as she hiccupped, sniffled several times, but—mercifully—stopped crying.
“How’d you do that?” Keely asked, impressed, and just a little jealous that Jack had succeeded where she had so obviously failed. “Does she have an OFF switch I missed?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said as Candy laid her head on his shoulder, still sniffling, hiccupping. “Must be that famous Trehan charm. Either that or you’re too tense and nervous, and Candy senses it.”
Keely shot him a say-what? look.
“Okay, so I’ve been reading. What else is there to do when you’re stuck in a waiting room with fifteen screaming kids and a bunch of mothers saying what a great guy you are for coming along to the doctor’s office with your wife. I wasn’t about to tell them I’d bailed when the doctor said it was time for Candy’s exam and shot, so I stuck my head in the first magazine I could find. Tense mothers make tense babies. I read that.”
“I am not tense,” Keely said, folding her arms in front of her, then belatedly relaxing her shoulders, realizing that she’d been holding herself stiffly for hours, possibly days... months.all her life.
“Candy thinks you are,” Jack pointed out. “Maybe not the other day, in the pool, but do you think she’d go to just anyone, and not always to the one who feeds her, washes her, dresses her? You’re afraid of her, and she knows it. Competent, but afraid. Capable, but afraid. A know-it-all, but afraid. I could go on,” he added, continuing his singsong taunt, “but I won’t.”
“That’s ridiculous, and it’s time for her bottle. Give her to me. Wouldn’t you know she’d fall asleep when she’s supposed to be eating?”
“Let her sleep, the poor kid’s exhausted,” Jack said, easing himself into one of the chairs in the den. “I’m not doing anything, and I can watch TV just as easily with her on my shoulder. Besides, that was also in the article I read—telling all about not always keeping to a strict schedule, as if the world will end if the kid sleeps through a bottle or stays up past her bedtime once in a while.”
Keely’s mouth twisted. “Did you bring home a couple of those inserts? You know, the ones that you can fill in, then send away for a subscription to the magazine? Hell, Trehan, maybe you’d want to write an article for the magazine. They could call it ‘Smug Cousin Knows Best.’”
“Temper, temper, McBride,” Jack said, smiling up at her. “Although I have to admit it, I kind of like pushing your buttons. You’re so easy.”
Keely looked at him for long moments, then gave him a quick kick in the shin. “There. Maybe we can build on that!” she said, using his own words against him, and left the room, grabbing up the car keys because she had to go to the grocery store and pick up Candy’s first jars of actual food. And maybe a little rat-fink poison for Candy’s Cousin Jack.
She shouldn’t go, shouldn’t leave. Candy might wake, still be cranky from her shot, and Jack wouldn’t be able to handle her. Not that Keely
wished Candy would cry. Certainly not. But the sweetheart could think about depositing a little present in her diaper for her Cousin Jack, just to score points with her Aunt Keely.